


The First Weyr

by Alleig



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-07 10:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13432989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alleig/pseuds/Alleig
Summary: As Fort Weyr expands, the first clutch of Faranth and Carenath lies of the sands. The first riders will welcome new colleagues and meet new challenges, new threats.





	1. Chapter 1

‘Are the eggs smaller than ours were?’ Sorka mused aloud to Nora as Faranth rearranged the brood with unhurried and pedantic care. Sorka had teased her about it at first, then worried about the seemingly obsessive-compulsive levels of maternal devotion. She’d never observed such exactitude and meticulousness in any fire lizard. However, as she made her own concern known to her fellow gold-rider, she felt she might actually understand the behaviour.

 

The golden dragon was as nervous as her rider for this first clutch of eggs conceived outside of an incubator. The future of Pern depended on the validity, the health, the fertility of their precious contents. As the first of her kind – the first dragon mother who had had neither dam nor sire of her own – the behaviour was the first normal and entirely reasonable and rational behaviour. So what if she attempted to position each individual grain of sand just so around the base of each egg, turned each one six or seven or even twelve times a day?

 

Nevertheless, Sorka shielded her own worry from the dragon’s mind as she watched her place her foreclaws on a perfectly shaped, yet dubiously-sized egg. It was this one and another dozen or so like it which had prompted Sorka’s query to Nora on her arrival at her side. As Faranth had lately begun to position her eggs out of a clutch and demarcate a circumference of sand at least two metres wide around each of the eggs over the last week, the size differences between eggs had become more apparent. But she couldn’t work out if it were because some were bigger, or if some were smaller than standard.

 

‘I’m not sure,’ Nora admitted in reply, after several moments’ consideration. She exchanged a glance with Sorka and offered a guilty half-smile. ‘It’s difficult to remember.’

 

Sorka smiled forgiveness at her friend. She had the same problem. Despite remembering the moment of Impression with photo-perfect clarity, the shells from which their miraculous inhabitants had burst were just background smudges. Like so much of life pre-Impression, it was almost impossible to remember it in any great detail.

 

‘It can’t be long now,’ Nora said with only a trace of the extreme impatience her own pregnant queen surely felt. The Hatching Ground, thought big enough to accommodate several queens’ clutches at once, had been designed with gold fire-lizards’ clutching habits in mind. They buried their nests and kept them close together, only turning them once or twice a day. Sorka wondered if Porth was deliberately delaying the moment where she dropped her own clutch till said time that the Hatching Ground was cleared. Sorka found herself revising her earlier indulgence of her queen’s brooding. She might need to have words with Faranth about her habits.

 

Sorka became aware of Nora looking at her some askance and realised that her earlier comment had been a polite but still pressing enquiry. She’d half-forgotten what it was.

 

‘Sorry, Nora,’ she said, shaking her head. It was distracting being there and the worry about the eggs was not conducive to a serious conversation, the one she’d invited her friend to talk about. ‘Let’s leave her to it.’

The two women left the Hatching Sands and Sorka forced herself to remember how to chat. She’d not been this distracted even in the time she’d had to contend with Michael learning to walk while she juggled servicing a glitchy flamethrower, oiling Faranth’s hide and attempting to discuss tactics with Sean.

 

‘I suppose the firelizards will let us know,’ she said, answering Nora’s earlier question. ‘What’s left of them anyway.’ Nora murmured agreement as they shed their thick, plastic-soled boots at the entrance to the sands and exchanged them for the lighter wear they had left there.

 

‘You hungry?’ Nora asked.

 

'Sure,’ said Sorka, indicating the way to the mess. They set off, only stumbling occasionally where the electric lighting system had not yet been replaced with glows in the tunnels.

 

It was only a short distance to the Mess but the noise of stone cutters working was even less favourable to conversation than the Ground they had just quit. They didn’t talk much until they both had a bowl of stew in front of them. Both slightly blueish offerings – wherry stew had become a staple since the move north – were scalding, so they left them to cool while they talked.

 

‘You wanted to talk about the Hatching, then?’

 

‘Yes,’ Sorka replied. ‘Have you got a list yet?’

Nora pulled one from her waist pouch. She went to hand it over and then hesitated, scrutinising a name or two in a way that Sorka read to be dubiousness.

 

‘Who’s up for the scratch Nora?’

 

Nora smiled with her eyes and grimaced with her nose. ‘Joanna Fields and Martin Lovejoy.’

 

The names required no explanation. Both had been present at the First and Second Hatchings from the incubated batches. Neither had merited even a sniff. Yet they scored highly on the Empathic Screening and both had attracted and kept fire lizards. There was no objective reason for them not to be there.

 

‘You think they can take another disappointment if they’re left standing?’ Sorka asked, holding out her hand for the list. Nora surrendered it with some visible relief, having discharged both her doubts about the two two-timers and her confidence in the remainder.

 

‘Their choice,’ she said as Sorka bent her head over the paper. Testing her stew with her little finger, first, Nora then drew it toward her and began to spoon it into her mouth.

 

Sorka wasn’t sure about that reasoning. Few though they were in number, the dragonriders had become revered and envied. Though they didn’t converse much anymore with the inhabitants of the Fort, despite the many workers who temporarily populated the Weyr to expand it, every dragonrider knew that their paired shadow on the ground was more than sufficient to turn heads. There was a powder keg of excitement around this clutch of Faranth’s and it was expected a number of people would be in attendance who had no chance of making Impression at all. It would be a very public triumph or disappointment, for anyone who stood in hope.

 

Could she have borne it if Faranth, the last golden queen to hatch from their original clutch, had Impressed another hopeful? Would her and Sean’s marriage have survived knowing that his heart was hers but his soul belonged to Carenath? How much of their bond had been strengthened and developed out of the shared experiences they’d had since? Would she have been standing again now?

 

Unlikely.

 

She must arrange a counsellor to be available after the Hatching, she thought, making a note on her own pad before attending fully to the paper Nora had passed her. Martin Lovejoy and Joanna Fields were the only ones from that first Impression. She could barely remember many of them, though, she thought, guilt stirring her stomach. However, scepticism soon cleared that feeling.

 

‘Rashid Muhammed, Nora?’

 

‘Problem?’

 

‘He didn’t pass the screen.’

 

‘Not enough people met the criteria of fire lizards and passing the screen.’ Nora didn’t sound defensive, just pragmatic.

 

‘He didn’t meet either of them to my recollection.’ Sorka looked at Nora directly.

 

‘Okay, he asked if he could stand. He failed the tests for the engineering apprenticeship he wanted and his only backups were mining and electrical maintenance. One’s a dead end and the other might well amount to the same thing in a more literal sense. I figured it couldn’t hurt to let him try.’

 

Sorka knew what Sean would say. Well, what he would fail to bite his tongue over. He’d said it was her business, not his, who she put before Faranth’s darlings but she couldn’t imagine him keeping to his own business of analysing Threadfalls and flying patterns if he’d been in earshot of their conversation.

 

Perhaps more than anyone, Sean believed in ensuring that the dragonriders were held in just esteem for the job they did. Sorka agreed with him in sentiment if not in zeal and part of that extended to presenting the best candidates at the Hatching.

 

Both her loyalty to and her shared feelings with her husband moved her to speak in protest at Rashid’s inclusion. And Tyler Goldman’s. Bonnie Summers. Alex Reid-Calson. Impressing a dragon wasn’t just something you had a go at, something she suspected Alex and Tyler might be doing. Or doing just to see if you could. Or attempted out of desperation to avoid something else.

 

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Nora said, before Sorka could exercise her voice on the matter. ‘Just hear me out.’

 

‘Only because my stew’s going cold,’ Sorka muttered, dragging her bowl in front of her. She filled her spoon and held it in front of her mouth. She planned on giving Nora the length of this bolus’s mastication and transition toward her stomach before weighing in. ‘Go.’ 

 

‘We don’t know that the empathy screen is necessarily a valid criterion for selecting riders,’ Nora said, holding up her little finger in point. Sorka chewed, slowly. Nora had rehearsed this part, she guessed.

 

‘Try thinking of it as an experiment, to see what actually drives Impression’ Nora said, before extending her ring finger. ‘Two, like I said, I don’t think it can hurt. And if it does, they’re consenting participants, willing to take the risk.’

 

Sorka sucked the juices from the meat, prepared to give Nora a little more time. She would have hauled her up on that if she hadn’t addressed it.

 

‘Three: we need more candidates than meet the criteria, like I said, and four,’ Nora seemed to sense that her time was up, speeding up as Sorka prepared to swallow. ‘Four, we’ll have another Impression in maybe just two months. If anyone’s left disappointed this time, they can try again.’ She smiled, hopeful but anxious in her anticipation of Sorka’s response.

 

Sorka twirled the spoon in her fingers, counting to ten in her head before allowing herself to say anything. She wasn’t overly impressed by any of those reasons, with the exception of the first one. The last one seemed to imply Nora had abandoned any idea of qualifying criteria at all.

 

Furthermore, Sorka could think of several solutions that might have expanded the list other than simply dropping what Sean and she had stipulated as the imutable threshold criteria of screen and fire-lizard affinity as Nora had done. She was disappointed with herself for having delegated the task to her friend. It had been necessary. Faranth’s needs had been great. Sorka’s own not inconsiderable. But still…

 

That had been her mistake. She had to own it as hers. Unfortunately, there was not much time to correct it.

 

She glanced down at the list. There were thirty-six eggs on the sands. The list numbered roughly seventy, at her guess, nearly the same ratio as there had been at the First and Second Hatchings.

 

‘How many of these passed the screen _and_ showed fire-lizard affinity?’ Sorka tried to ensure scepticism was the primary tone colouring her words. She was not conceding.

 

‘Sixteen,’ Nora replied, promptly.

 

‘And one or other?’

 

‘Eighteen more.’

 

Sorka didn’t want to fall out with Nora. And she would have to take on some responsibility for this task soon enough anyway when Nora became too busy with Porth.

 

‘Okay, she said, trying to sound bright and optimistic and surprising herself with succeeding. Sean wouldn’t have.

_Sean wouldn’t have tried._ Faranth surprised her by interjecting.

_You’ve been listening?_

_Finish with Nora. Tell her Porth can take over the sands soon._

 

The mess came back into focus around her and she saw Nora wearing a knowing expression. They could all recognise when dragon and rider were in communion.

 

‘I think we’re going to need the numbers,’ she said. ‘So we’ll take them. I do take your point about the experiment. But I also want you to get on the computer and relax the age limits on the screening data: five years on the upper and f-, no, three years on the lower. Drop the fire lizard requirement. Not enough people ever got the chance there did they?’

 

‘No,’ Nora murmured, looking strangely regretful and then her eyes blanked and she smiled guiltily and with self-admonishment as Porth clearly expressed her disbelief at her mate’s regret. Sorka threw a napkin at her in jest, reminding her to stop being so silly. As Nora took her pencil from behind her ear to write down the new parameters so she wouldn’t forget, Sorka was reminded by her own dragon to speak.

 

‘Faranth says it won’t be long.’

 

‘How long?’

 

‘Days, maybe? That’ll make it two weeks longer than the fire lizards.’

 

Nora grinned and squeaked in excitement. Both women finished their meals and then Nora scuttled off to run the numbers.

 

Sorka knew from both a practical and ethical standpoint that thirteen was too young. Fifteen was pushing things. She thought of how little she could remember of her life clearly pre-Faranth, how utterly part of her the golden queen was now. A person should be a person first, then a dragonrider. Even Sean was not so pragmatic as to hold only up the impracticality of having to wait for a person to mature sufficiently before taking a place in the ranks.

 

Sean. She could not remember when they had last spoken to one another in a conversation lasting longer than two minutes. Sorka put her hand on the rim of the now distinct pregnant curve of her abdomen. Would Sean even know this baby? He barely knew Michael, now nearly three. Neither of them did.

 

They hadn’t even had the time to discuss how rearing yet another child would fit in with fighting Thread. It wasn’t as if either of them could take time off from what they did. Even nearly three more full wings from Faranth’s clutch would take a year to mature, so that wouldn’t provide much relief.

 

She’d discussed it with Mairi, who’d agreed to be a wet nurse for Sorka, if she could keep a supply going long enough once Sorka’s youngest sister, Nimh, turned one, and that was an unknown.

 

Assuming all was well, that would free Sorka to ride again.

_Sorka, you will be fine. There will be many dragons in time. What is, is. What will be, will be._

_I know, dear one, I know._

 

The dragon embraced her rider across their link and Sorka allowed herself to feel it. But as the golden dragon drifted back to her eggs, her rider’s thoughts soured again.

 

Much as she loved Faranth, the dragon could not understand the guilt Sorka felt. The love she had expected to reserve for Sean, for their first child, for their second…none of it compared to that she felt for Faranth. There were days she forgot her first child even existed. Faranth was enough. She would not want to live without her. Could she say the same of her children? No. Because Faranth would be there.

 

Sorka turned her head away from the thought. The circular trap her mind ran through had no way out except to jump off. She looked down at the list and saw only the blank wood of the table in front of her. Nora had taken it with her, of course. There was no distraction to be had there.

 

There was no one whom she could share this with. The psychologist they’d had assigned to them had been long since accepted her redundancy and plied her skills elsewhere. Besides, Sorka’s was a unique experience: a rare certainty in her life.

 

Distant cracks told her that Sean and the other wings had returned. She felt the familiar touch of Carenath to her mind that he always made in direct greeting to her, relaying Sean’s thoughts shortly afterward.

 

She returned them and stood up to leave, returning her dish and Nora’s to the sink to wash up. The riders’ return from Threadfall would coincide presently with the end of the workmen’s shift and they would be flooding the Mess, keen to fill their stomachs after eight hours of cutting stone in the dragons’ keep, as they were calling it. Both dragonrider and workers preferred to keep their paths from overlapping.

 

She would go to see Sean. Maybe they could share a bath, she thought, or maybe even catch five minutes to appraise one another of the latest developments in their respective spheres of occupation.

 

Her rueful thought as she left the mess was of Carenath and Faranth’s mating flight. Lucky it had been so memorable. Sorka had a feeling she’d need something so sumptuous to sustain her over a long interval.

 

*

 

Sean Connell ached. He was more ache than man, he felt, as he attempted, and failed, to unzip his flight gear from his left shoulder.

 

He eyed the bottle of numbing salve by the pool in his and Sorka’s joint quarters. He knew there was already a tendency to overuse the stuff among the riders and he’d had to ration the substance strictly among them to keep them from overworking already abused bodies. A rider needed to know his or her limits if they were going to be effective.

 

He led by example and used only a one-eighth strength of the analgesic himself whenever he did, which was rare. It was a good thing. He could well use the whole damn lot on his shoulder and it would not be sufficient. 

 

No scores today, at least. But twenty dragons were just not enough, and he knew it. Everyone knew it. No one dared say it.

 

Soon there would be fifty-odd. Then eighty. The other queens would be rising soon, it was certain. In two years they would be over two hundred, assuming they maintained their run of good luck and lost no dragon-rider pairs, which it pained him to admit was unlikely. Then Admiral Benden would want to talk about expansion beyond the Fort, stretching their capacity over broader ground. The sled teams would take up less slack as well.

 

For not the first or even the thousandth time since he had first fought Thread from Carenath’s neck, he allowed himself to envy the masses of colonists who had bedded down within the rock of the Fort, depending on someone else’s constant pain and near daily terror for his survival.

 

He only allowed himself these thoughts when Carenath was asleep. He shared them with no one.

 

He was lowering himself into the bath when Sorka arrived in, turning on the light that he’d neglected to switch on, favouring the dimmer, mellower glow from the glowbasket. He winced at the clinical fluorescence.

 

‘Heartless woman,’ he growled, submerging his aching torso up to his neck.

 

‘You’ll be blind before you’re thirty,’ she snarled right back at him, bending over to pick up the discarded clothes. He felt guilty. The light illuminated much of his domestic slovenliness: the stack of dishes by the kitchen unit, encrusted with days-old rims of cereals and likely a promising colony of penicillin; the sheets that had not been washed.

 

They didn’t have the _time_ , that was the problem. Two to three hours a day went into caring for Carenath alone, a job he could and would not outsource to anyone. Then there was Thread to fly every two and three days and drills and strategy meetings to have on days off. Dragons then needed to fed and they needed to eat as well. Admiral Benden must have his weekly meetings and the terrain needed surveying by dragonsight as well, especially if ever there was going to be any expansion beyond the claustrophobic confines of the Fort. Then was rest. Darn it but the only way Sorka and he had conceived a second child at all was due to _that_ mating flight. He shook his head at the memory. That was a day’s worth of brooding in itself, a labyrinthine mental minefield best avoided. Back to the matter at hand.

 

He watched Sorka fold the garments onto the chest against the opposite wall and began to prepare his excuse. Domesticity was well and good when what other people thought about you mattered more than anything.

 

‘We need a support staff,’ Sorka surprised him by mirroring and extending his thoughts. He turned to her, his eyebrows pinched in enquiry.

 

‘It’s not your fault, Sean. I don’t blame you at all,’ she said, turning to him and letting her glance linger on the numbing salve. She came and sat next to him on the edge of the pool: a natural formation cut deep, smoothed and plumbed by the small army of workmen charged with developing the crater into a home fit for dragons and riders.

 

‘We cannot be expected to run this place on our own,’ Sorka went on. ‘I’d say we could easily support a permanent staff of some two hundred, maybe even more once the clutch Hatches.’

 

‘I’ll speak to the Admiral about it,’ Sean said, trying to sit up to talk business. Sorka smiled and pushed him back in and under.

 

‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Just as soon as Nora’s finished preparing the candidate list. I want them to spend some time here a week ahead anyway, get used to them, like we did. It’ll be a natural way to fold in a request for additional personnel.’

 

It occurred to Sean some of the people who were inevitably unsuccessful at the Hatching might be persuaded to stay on in the Weyr afterwards.

 

‘Keep the request small, then, love,’ he said. ‘We can always ask for more later.’

 

Sorka met his eyes and they smiled at each other, both aware of how remarkably alone with each other they were, for the first time in weeks. Faranth’s absence and Carenath’s somnolence were a rare coincidence.

 

‘Care to…’ Sean broke off and grinned as Sorka shucked her clothing onto the floor and they both laughed as her rounding belly caused the water to brim even to the high water mark of this generous bathing pool.

 

*

 

The next day, the Admiral approved the list of candidates Sorka submitted before him, seeming not to notice that Sorka bobbed an eyebrow at the idea that she needed his “approval” on the matter. She had culled five names from Nora’s original list for being out of the age bracket. It was thought that no one over thirty should stand this time. By expanding the other two criteria, they’d managed to add another twelve onto the list and she was feeling hopeful.

 

He also approved her request for additional support and confirmed he would have someone from recruitment and personnel get on with processing their needs immediately.

 

More immediately, messages began to make their way by wing, comm or mouth to all of the candidates on the list and all but two people responded within the hour. They rode up to the Weyr on horseback that afternoon and were met by Sorka herself at the mouth.

 

She settled them in some of the eight berth quarters that the workmen had already completed and had them all assemble in the Mess. She couldn’t help but think of what she and Sean might have been like if they were part of that group. Who would be standing here now, she wondered privately?

 

 _I do not know, but I would not be paired with anyone had you not been there_? Sorka smiled with the rapture of the meaning of that message. There was darkness to it too, but the essence was pure love.

 

‘Thank you all for coming,’ she said, her words alarming her by having the immediate effect of turning every head in the room to face her. She felt for her bond with Faranth and she relaxed. What could anyone’s judgement here do to her?

 

‘I don’t know all of you,’ she said, her speech improvised as she became aware of the emergent need to make one. ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to improve on that before the Hatching but for some of you, _most_ of you, I’ll have plenty of time afterward.’

 

The reaction seemed positive. People’s smiles were beginning to turn from nervous to eager, she thought, and she pressed on.

 

‘We don’t know quite how much time we’ll have before then, but we’ve developed a rough idea of things we think you need to know ahead of Hatching, if you Impress. First, we’re going to give you a working tour of the Weyr, which won’t take long as there’s still not that much of it to speak of. We’re currently expanding at the rate of about one finished set of cut apartments per week and we have eighty-three vacant now. We won’t be seeing all of them because not all of them are serviced, but we’ll give you an idea of what to expect.’

 

People were murmuring quite excitedly at this. Fort was frequently nicknamed Fraught. Taut. Tight. The idea of vacant space of any kind would make Impressing even one of Wind Blossom’s uglies look attractive if it were a listed price.

 

‘After that, we’re going to have you take a look at our Infirmary. We have a dragon down at the moment and we think you need to see this. This is what having a dragon inevitably amounts to at some point, even if you’re riding Gold. We tend our dragons ourselves, and we’re crucial to the management of their care. You need to see how this is done.’

 

Faces were soberer now. Sorka continued.

 

‘Finally, today that is, we’ll be taking you to see the Eggs themselves. They’re due any day now, and that’s probably the most important thing, but it’s not the only important thing. You’ll be doing this twice a day from now until whenever it is their shells crack. This will be dawn and dusk every day. In between then, you’ll be integrating yourselves into Weyr life. You’re our guests, but we don’t have time to host and entertain you and we need all hands on deck. You’ll be taken to the phosphine rock sites and help to retrieve the yields. When you get back, you’ll be shown how to break and prepare these for Thread. At the moment, this takes up the majority of our days in between fall and we’re currently two dragonriders down, so this will be an invaluable service and you’ll be learning something besides.’

 

People didn’t look too happy about this, but tongues were also clearly being bitten. Sorka ignored the baleful expressions exchanged among them. This wasn’t a holiday. They would learn or go home. They had to learn and there was no better time to start than now, before all their attentions were lost in the rainbow regard of their hatchlings’ eyes.

 

‘We’re also arranging for you to observe Threadfall tomorrow,’ she said and this had a transformative effect. People stopped looking at each other and looked at her. Rashid Muhammed actually raised his hand. Sorka nodded at him to speak.

 

‘Do you mean we get to ride a dragon? In Fall, I mean.’

 

‘You will go up in groups of four, two to a queen dragon, and you’ll ride beneath the bronzes and browns,’ Sorka said. ‘You will be up there for approximately five minutes at a time, just to see what it is like and to experience going _between_. We will be assessing your performance here and we will be expecting you to reflect on the experience afterwards. Sean has suggested this, and I agree, because we feel that it will help to clarify your expectations.’

 

Another young man, Sorka didn’t know his name, raised his hand high and didn’t entirely wait for permission to speak before blurting his question. ‘Is this something you’re doing to thin us out then? We’ve all paid our dues on ground crew and sled duty. I’ve done sled duty since before the Crossing. If anyone’s doubting our qualifications…’

 

‘No one can doubt what none of you have,’ Sorka clipped his speech short and did not regret the anger that it provoked in their expressions. She recognised the type; she’d seen it and heard it the day that Benden had approved the development of the Weyr as dragonrider headquarters in the quarterly General Meeting. Dragonrider privilege, people had grumbled. Dragonriders barely replaced the work of eighteen sleds and yet were taking quarters fit for over a thousand people. And manpower besides. On top of the sheer volume of food they consumed.

 

It was attitudes like that that were the reason why she and Sean and every other dragonrider who had contributed had agreed unanimously that this was necessary.

 

 _Do not apologise, Sorka_. Faranth was firm, the voice of her conscience, Sorka sometimes imagined. _They are not qualified. Give them three days and then they will know._

_Three days, eh, dear one?_

Faranth preened.

 

‘I’ll let you get something to eat and drink and then we’ll begin. I must see to Faranth, now and relieve her while she feeds. I will leave you now with Peter and Tarrie, who will begin your tour and who will answer any questions you have. I will see you this evening.

 

As she walked out of the Mess and back toward the Hatching Ground, Sorka remembered the promise she and Sean had made, nearly two years ago now. Never would dragonriders apologise or argue. By dragon wings and rider hands the future would be secured for the people of Pern. Time would settle all arguments. Dignity was best preserved in the mean.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Armin Schwimmer was the young man’s name. Every rider in the Weyr knew it by that evening and if Sorka had forgotten it by the following morning she was reminded of it in spades by the end of the following day based on the frank feedback the bronze, brown and gold riders submitted.

He had an opinion about everything. He had questioned the need to oil and wash dragon hide every day. Wild firelizards did without it and they never seemed to come to any harm. Wouldn’t more ground level weyrs be more suitable for it would be impossible to service all the caves higher up? Very inefficient. Would he be able to request a ground level weyr? What if he hewed himself? What about families? Would he be able to live out if he preferred?

And why have people break the phosphine rock? The dragons were strong, they could do the work in a fraction of the time. And if dragons were content to let Thread fall free on the continent, surely they should be doing more than just sleeping.

Even Threadfall hadn’t sobered him. He was advising Shih Lao on how to aim her flamethrower and had even volunteered to come back up with one so they could cover more airspace. Shocking waste of space on a dragon’s back, in his opinion, only one rider apiece. No wonder the sleds were still in use and yet you didn’t see special privileges being accorded to the crews who manned them.

Sorka consulted the list and found he unfortunately met all three criteria she had stipulated, albeit his firelizard had allegedly fled at Crossing along with most everyone else’s at that time. She did wonder at the validity of the empathy test if it could pass him.

However, they had no intention of trimming anyone from the pack, barring any unacceptable behaviour. They needed to bring people into the Weyr and keep them, regardless of whether they Impressed. Maybe in future they could afford to be choosy. Maybe he wouldn’t last long anyway.

Armin notwithstanding, the overall feedback was fairly positive. A number of the candidates had distinguished themselves, Rashid Muhammed among them, she had to admit. He applied himself with a true will and asked intelligent questions at every task he had applied himself to. He had shown a strong capacity for reflection, which was a skill not only welcome but Sorka and Sean felt it essential. You could never stop learning as a dragonrider. Even if he didn’t Impress, Sorka was certain they could find work for him here.

She was prepared to have to counsel him afterward. On the Hatching Sands, she had consulted privately with Faranth, and had been surprised to find she had an opinion. She had noted a number of people as being silent, gaining no impression of their minds at all.

 _Your mind sang to mine_ , Faranth had said. _Most of these have tunes but some do not. They are not singing to the young ones now. It is unlikely to change._

Faranth would not be drawn to be more specific, but that was dragons for you. They rarely bothered with names outside of those who were riders and there were so many people cluttering the sands that her irritation probably suppressed any incentive for her to make the effort.

Joanna had looked anxious, not speaking unless spoken to and clearly concealing the fact that she was a second timer. Martin was more open and Sorka observed at dinner that a number of the candidates were approaching him with questions about the first Hatching. She had been about to step in when Sean stopped her.

‘He remembers more than we do,’ he’d said.

It was true. Martin’s recollections were objective and detailed. Had anyone approached her with the question of how long it took for a shell to crack or were there any obvious patterns in who got what, Sorka would have struggled to come up with an answer. Everyone who rode a dragon felt the same way. The only thing they really remembered in any detail was that moment. Given an opportunity to recollect said moment, most of them would gaze off into space with a loopy smile in silent communion with their partner as they relived it. Sorka was disgusted to admit herself and Sean were guilty of the same thing, although that might be a reflection of how rarely they actually discussed that moment among themselves.

Sorka got out her pencil and list as of things to do before the Hatching to add to it a note to get Bay up there for when the Hatching started. Maybe Red too, if he could be spared. They could use an objective eye on things, someone who relied more on measurements and numbers than on instinct and habit. Pol and Bay had moved more into animal husbandry since the Crossing, gracefully accepting their redundancy at the Weyr as their expertise was surpassed by the ones who rode the dragons. Once Kira, John, Ellis and Colm had graduated to fly Emwith, Karth, Dolth and Harith with the original seventeen, they had declared their work with dragons done for the time being, although they had promised their services if ever they were required.

It would not be long now. She trusted Faranth’s judgement and her own. The eggs were beginning to move now, rocking in their depressions of sand and Sorka could see now why Faranth had arranged them so. They were liable to fall over and potentially damage their occupants if not for her fussing over them.

She looked at her list. What was she forgetting? Towels, water, oil, get the showers fixed, ensure the Barracks were prepared, find an alternative name for the Barracks.

These were all things they had been unprepared for last time. It had been such a messy affair and the first thing everyone had asked for when they had finally got their dragons to stop eating was…

‘Meat!’ she exclaimed aloud and the other riders at the table looked askance at her. Sean glanced at her, then at her list and worked it out.

‘You don’t have meat organised yet?’

Sorka bristled at his tone. ‘No, I don’t’ She kept her voice as low as she could whilst still conveying her irritation. She didn’t want the candidates to hear what might turn into a spat! ‘And if you think it’s so obvious I’m sure you’ll also know exactly how much I should be ordering.’

Sean opened his mouth and then cancelled his retort as his mind began to calculate.

‘Two head do you reckon. Of beef?’

‘That’s not enough,’ Peter chimed in. ‘There’s twice what we Impressed this time.’

‘Does anyone know?’

‘Marco would have known.’

‘I’d say two head of cattle, six or seven ewes to be sure.’

‘You’ll be more likely to get a couple of billy kids than ewes right now. Albie Summers was complaining the other day. I can ask him when I fly over tomorrow. He hates raising billy kids any longer than he has to. Would prefer to get their mothers milking. They’re easier to fleece and butcher, too.’

‘Okay, sounds good.’

‘So we’re agreed then? Two cows, however many billy kids Albie Summers will let us have? Should be enough for thirty-six, right?’

As the conversation turned to the practical arrangements of the Hatching, the dragonriders unconsciously formed a cluster, with others joining them from the other tables as various entries on Sorka’s list found willing volunteers. Some of the candidates found themselves at tables on their own and gradually began to group together.

‘I don’t think they mean it,’ a girl called Emmeline Ryder said, attempting to quash a couple of grumblers.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Armin said. ‘They’re privileged. They’re only interested in you if you ride. When I’ve been up on the sleds…’

‘Yeah you said Schwimmer now give it a rest.’

‘Fine,’ he said, and Emmeline wondered if he had finally got the message. ‘But believe me, when I’ve Impressed, I’m not going to forget it.’

Apparently not, Emmeline thought.

‘ _When_ you’ve Impressed?’ Martin looked incredulous.

‘Yes, _when_.’ Armin said. Emmeline noticed that he was keeping his voice low. Maybe he had noticed the effect his arrogance was having on the riders, if not on the group. ‘I’m going to Impress. It’s just a matter of timing. I’m telling you. Ignore what they were saying about waiting for the moment to happpen. You’ve got to seize it. That’s how I got a bronze. I practically sat on that egg for a week before it hatched and basically force fed it when it hatched.’

Martin looked more than just disgusted.

‘And you really do think you know it all, don’t you?’ Martin stood up and Emmeline glanced at the dragonriders, still deep in discussion. They hadn’t noticed. ‘You think they all Impressed because they were sharper-elbowed than all the rest of us who were there?’

Armin hadn’t stood up in response and he took in Martin’s tense shoulders and curling fists from a nonchalant posture at a sixty degree angle in his chair. He put his fingers together tip to tip and Emmeline knew what was headed Martin’s way before Armin even opened his mouth. She stood up and spoke first.

‘I don’t think any of us should be guessing or theorising or claiming expertise that we don’t have,’ she said, wincing as she caught Martin in her peripheral vision turning in hurt toward her. She had to ignore him. Her mother treated her and sister and brother exactly the same way and, whilst it always hurt, it was the best way of silencing an argument. Declare everyone a loser, no de facto winners, and the game was over. Well, that point Armin had been about to score was invalidated now.

She walked away from the table and she was surprised and gladdened to find a couple of people joining her. Joanna, Saskia, Coco and Jonathan. They headed back to the barracks together and set up in Jonathan’s bunk. Emmeline wondered if they would be bringing their dragons back here. There were ledges made of stone about two feet above floor height. It seemed plausible. But the thought was private. The conversation naturally was all about Armin.

‘Do you think he hears himself when he talks?’ Saskia had been fortunate enough to only be a recent admission to Armin’s school of life. The rest of them had been silently exercising tolerance all day.

‘I think he knows exactly what he’s saying,’ Joanna said, a frown pinching her eyebrows. She looked quite pale and fretful and Emmeline wondered if he’d said something more specific to Joanna.

‘The thing is,’ Jonathan said, passing around glasses of quikal from the bottle he’d produced from his knapsack. ‘Cheers,’ they all said, briefly clinking glasses and chugging. Then Jonathan continued.

‘The thing it, he probably stands as a good a chance of any of us. Maybe even more. If any of us Impress, we may just have to put up with him.’

‘I don’t know why he’s still here. Surely they must see what he’s like.’

‘Well that’s my point,’ Jonathan said. ‘He’s probably here because he meets all the criteria. They’re putting the dragons first. I guess they’re betting on him being able to do the same if he Impresses.’

‘I don’t think much for dragon taste if he does.’ Coco’s accented voice was bitter.

‘Fire lizards aren’t very discriminating.’ Saskia pointed out. ‘And he already got one of those.’

‘ _Had_ one,’ Emmeline felt it necessary to correct. ‘He didn’t stay. And look at Sorka. She’s still got her bronze even when most of them went _between_. Quite a few of the dragonriders have them, I’ve noticed.’

‘Any of you had them?’

‘I did,’ Joanna said. ‘Back at Landing. But she went _between_ and didn’t come back. She was a green. Guess that reflects badly on me.’

Everyone fell silent. Firelizards were so rare now that few people under twenty years of age could claim to have one or have had one. They hadn’t thought to have been insulting one of their own in their rush to take Armin down a few pegs.

Emmeline didn’t know much about Joanna. She was older than them; twenty-two or three, she guessed, whereas Saskia was only seventeen and the Jonathon was the oldest at nineteen. They had worked together today and had gone up on the Threadfall ride together on Porth. But she had been quite quiet.

‘Sorry, Joanna. I wasn’t thinking. We just hate him. We all do. We’ll find any reason to try and picture a future for us without him in it.’

Jonathon was a gentleman, Emmeline thought. Everyone murmured their agreement with him, herself included. Joanna accepted the reassurance with good grade but nevertheless added a sobering thought of her own.

‘Well, that may come about anyway. He may Impress and none us may not.’

‘No, no, none of that,’ Saskia said, reaching for the bottle to refill the glasses. ‘Come on. I haven’t ridden on the back of a dragon today to call it my last time. I’m going to Impress. We all will. And if not tomorrow, Nora said there’ll be another clutch in a couple of months or so. We’ll get our chance. I don’t think Armin will get more than one.’

‘You think?’

‘No, I don’t. He’s pissed off Sean and you know what they say about him.’

‘That the only opinions he’s interested in are the ones in his head?’

Everyone laughed, breaking off nervously as they heard footsteps, other people returning from the meal to get a good night’s sleep. It was tiring work they were doing through the days and Emmeline had to admit she was tired herself. She hoped for a reason to remove to her own bunk soon.

‘We shouldn’t really,’ Joanna said. ‘He’s damn good at what he does, he really is. He’s not just dragon-fanatic or whatever, or someone jumped up on power and privilege without earning them. And he really does understand dragons inside and out. You know he trained as a vet before he Impressed Carenath? He was involved in the bioengineering project too. Both him and Sorka. If he respects dragon opinion, it’s because he’s spent a lot of time with them and had to trust them when there was no one else to turn to.’

Emmeline was not alone in staring at Joanna after this rather long speech. She sounded, almost, like a dragonrider herself, not just a candidate.

‘Do you know Sean outside of this situation?’ Jonathon asked, quietly.

Joanna hesitated, her eyebrows telling quite a story of conflicted feelings and her lips providing a subplot of shame and embarrassment. Then, as a climax, she dropped her shoulders and relaxed.

‘Yeah, I knew him. And Sorka and David and the others. We trained together. I was a veterinary nurse. We presented together at the first Hatching.’

She was ashamed of this, it was clear. Her eyes were full of tears. Coco leaned forward to take Joanna’s hand.

‘You were at the first Hatching? With Martin?’

Joanna wiped at her eyes and nodded. ‘Yeah I was.’

‘What can you remember?’

Joanna laughed, her eyes creasing as she went into recall. ‘David was the first, with Polenth. A lot of people assume Sean and Sorka were first but they were actually last. I was sitting next to David on a bench. It was really clinical, the room we were in. Lots of fluorescent lighting and some of us basically looked like ghosts by the end of those forty-eight hours…Anyway, yeah, David. The shell breaks and everyone’s really staring, Pol and Bay practically having to be restrained from bringing out the portable X on this little thing that comes out, not much bigger than a four-year-old child and it’s all wet and strung with these strands of yolk. You could barely tell what colour it was, if it was gold or bronze or brown and then David just got up and it was like someone had flipped a switch in his head. What was it he said? Yeah, he said, “He wants me.” And then someone shouted at him, “accept him,” or something and he just wanders over and greets this little dragon and the dragon knew him.’

They knew that Armin’s fire lizard luring trick was full of shit from Martin’s account, but this was something Martin hadn’t really dwelt on: the moment of Impression itself. He seemed to have avoided the description of that moment itself, describing more what people were doing before and after. The specific details about how it had taken place had been missing.

‘He _knew_ David?’ Emmeline pressed Joanna for more. She couldn’t quite get her head around that.

‘Yeah. And David kept saying stuff about the voice in his head. You could tell it wasn’t like a fire lizard. There was nothing David did that marked him out. It’s just that this little baby dragon knew he wanted him, as soon as he Hatched. And that was that. There was David before and David and Polenth afterward. He walked out of there a different man. I’ve never seen anyone look so damn happy…’

Joanna broke off for a second, clearly reflecting. Then she spoke again, her tone darkened slightly. ‘I think there’s a tendency to think dragonriders exaggerate their relationship with their dragons. People who have or have had fire lizards think it’s comparable, but I’m telling you, the moment I impressed little Rassi was like inadvertently having a chick imprint on me by comparison. It was more accident and then a matter of her sticking around because I fed her and was convenient. David and Polenth? Love.’

Everyone took a moment to reflect on this. Emmeline had to admit, as she searched her thoughts on this, that the primary notions she’d had of what it would mean to Impress a dragon had been of the freedom that having one’s own personal aerial transport would mean. Even flying on Porth earlier, her thoughts had tended towards thinking of the advantages of a dragon over a sled, as a dragon could afford to get closer because of that ability to wink out of sight when Thread got too close and having a direct, forward-facing stream of flame, whereas a sled would rely on multiple flamethrower operators carving a path through the storm, as it were, and only tackling very predictable falls. As she listened to Joanna’s description, she found herself overlaying onto that experience a bond of profound trust and regard that allowed the bonded dragon and rider pairs to demand and expect precisely what was required of each other.

‘They’re not just fire lizards writ large then?’ Jonathan said, betraying the preoccupation of his almost glazed eyes by an adjustment of expectations similar to Emmeline’s.

‘No,’ Joanna said. ‘And it was the same for all of them. Everyone had the same reaction. You should have heard Sean when he Impressed Carenath. Oh, and that’s the other thing. They know their names as well. You know how tight lipped Sorka was when Armin was muttering about how he was planning on breaking with this “tradition” they’ve started of naming dragons with a word-final /th/? Well that was why. They all said their dragons’ names. It was completely spontaneous, the riders had nothing to do with it.’

The conversation’s return to Armin was sobering. The idea of him being bestowed with such a privilege was nigh unbearable. And there was nothing to be done about it either, if he did.

The silence turned stale and Jonathan was the first to break it, declaring that whilst it had been a pleasure, he was obliged to boot them all out so that he could get a good night’s sleep.

Emmeline and Coco went and retrieved their knapsacks so that they could share with Saskia and Joanna. They’d bonded.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

_If I were a younger man_ , thought Admiral Benden as he admired the view of the Fort and the high Weyr from golden Emwith’s back behind Kira Molineux.

No green up here but further down in the valley, the precious pastures and the cultivations that had dared to spread out from the hydroponics bays mapped out the future of Pern.

More than that, though, for despite the almost mundane optimism such views evoked in Benden’s heart, the aerial perspective was barely remarkable for a man who had piloted the colony ships to their home. No, it was the rush of air through his sinuses, beating his skin and raising his follicles. The horizon would dip and rear to the undulation of the dragon’s neck with each climbing beat, too, an organic motion that could stir the marrow and quicken the spirits even of a man who had come to shy from life’s beatings such as Admiral Paul Benden.

The dragons were a more than ample substitute for the sleds, Paul knew, and with this experience he knew that Pern would never lack for the volunteers they would need to keep this colony going long after he was dead and gone. If they made it that far, though.

Paul shook his head. He could not bear to think it but the sleds were failing. Joel had barred all but essential use in Fall now. The facility to charge them effectively just wasn’t available in the North.

Would they last another year? Sean had not skipped a beat when he promised that the two wings would take up the slack, promising that the Weyr’s capacity would increase at speed now. He had not yet broken a promise and Benden hoped before day’s end that the first phrase toward that promise’s fulfilment would be complete.

But dragons bred desperately slowly. And could not be rushed. These golden queens had taken two and a half years before the first mating and only four of them had done that. Pregnancy had only been confirmed with three of them, and the fourth was too soon to tell. He had hoped the time frame might be shorter, even made cautious bets on it with Joel. But Kitti Ping’s programme was rigid.

And what if their mortality rate matched those of the first clutch? So few had survived that and then there had been that dreadful accident with Marco Galliani.

He did not share these concerns with Sean, who he suspected had concerns of his own he likewise kept to himself. There was no point. What command could he possibly give to do better, to find a solution, which would have any effect other than to add further burden to the young red-head’s shoulders. Sean had taken on the responsibility of one twice or thrice his age and now spoke as a veteran easily of as many battles as Benden himself and more? It was no longer Benden’s battle. He had to trust the next generation now.

The face of the crater wall cut distance from between itself and Emwith with abrupt precision, causing Benden to start, pulling backwards against the straps that held him to the dragon’s neck and cling to her rider. Emwith climbed almost vertically for a moment, battling a pocket of dead air or something – Paul couldn’t tell – and then the rim of the Weyr below them. They hovered, Paul guessed for his benefit, and he observed the activities below.

Three stone cutters were active in the upper caves that he could see, hollowing out apartments for the soon to be hatched dragons. There was evidence of some infrastructure in the bowl of the fortified space, too, paths marked out to various areas. The sheer size of the crater bowl the Weyr occupied made that necessary for those constrained by having only their two feet to carry them from one side to another and Paul approved.

In and around the lake, several gold and a few darker shapes were visible. The dragons did love their baths, Paul thought, smiling as he remembered the then bizarre sight of the dragon hatchlings being bathed with the help of fairs of fire lizards at Landing. It wasn’t quite the same, though, as he shuddered as he imagined the brisk shock of morning lake water.

Emwith shrugged to her left and began a circling descent. A crack sounded above as another draconic form – a brown, Benden thought – emerged from _between._ Benden had himself been advised against such modes of transportation as it was not known how the micro-circuitry in his fingers would stand up to such abrupt and extreme temperature shifts. There would be no repairing them if it failed.

He wondered what the between space must be like. The mechanics of the transfer resisted comprehension by the objective mind. He did wonder, too, at the potential applications of the ability beyond fighting Thread. Those fifteen years spent travelling to Pern…

‘Admiral?’

Benden jumped and found himself on the ground now, being proffered one of Kira’s gloved hands to aid a dismount. He shook his head and then unclipped the straps around his waist with his left hand and took her right hand in his.

‘Thank you, my dear, and Emwith, too. A true pleasure.’

Kira smiled as she assisted him down from the gold dragon’s shoulder. As his feet touched the ground, he perceived a strange vibration.

‘It’s Faranth and the bronzes,’ Kira said, pre-empting his question. They’ve been humming all morning. That’s how we know.’

Even as she spoke her own dragon’s throat swelled and Benden found himself covering his ears against the emanating sound. She rose from the ground and flapped toward the cavern to Benden and her rider’s left.

‘How many dragons are in there?’ Benden said, lowering his hands, wary now of attending the Hatching.

‘It’s not so bad when you’re in there,’ Kira said. ‘The sound carries down through the floor and up and out. We think it’s actually something that stimulates the Hatching. A few cracks started not long after Faranth started doing it. Nothing major, but we think it helps.’

Benden wondered to himself if that were part of Kitti Ping’s programme but bit his tongue before he asked Kira. Emwith had been part of the modified programme. It was believed they may well be on a separate developmental pathway. He did not wish to cause offense or upset.

Kira accompanied him into the Hatching Ground and directed him to a seat. He was impressed by the tiered seating around the sands so everyone not involved in the Hatching itself could get a view. It was exactly what the occasion required and it kept everyone’s feet cool and away from the sands that threatened to burn the soles of his feet, even through thick boots.

The walls thrummed with the dragons’ vocals and there was a quality about the cavern that reminded the admiral of Earth’s ancient cathedrals, with their vaulted ceilings lifting up the praises of their choirs. The air seemed to shimmer with the sound while Benden’s bones tingled with the pleasure.

But it was the eggs in their repose on the sands, looking for all the worlds like ancient erect stone circles on Earth, that drew the eye. Their deliberate positioning, no doubt by their mother, and of the dam herself, coiled protectively around one in particular, was something out of legend. Paul had never been a religious man but then there had been nothing much to be devout to or about in his former lives. Irrelevant, silent Gods and prophets, gibberish books and nonsense rule and ritual long since stripped of all practical value or purpose: the source of so much suffering and division. But Faranth in all her golden grandeur was no less a Madonna than any idol in stained glass or cast from mould, albeit one strong and proud.

Paul Benden paused in the tiers to take in her prestige, this first dragon mother of Pern, deliverer of the hope and future of this fragile colony. This was a temple worth pledging to, worth sacrificing to, tithing to. If only…

‘Admiral.’ Benden was startled for a third time as Sean Connell’s voice sounded to his right. He turned and clasped the strong hand the leader of the dragonriders extended to him.

‘Sean! Man of the hour.’

Sean scoffed at him, pointing upwards at the crouched dragons on their ledges. ‘Carenath if you must, but the day is Faranth’s. And Sorka’s.’

‘And where is Sorka?’ Benden asked as the two of them took their seats, at the front of the tiering.

‘Getting the candidates ready. And I think she’ll be having words with Faranth. She’s a touch protective. See her eyes?’

Benden hadn’t, but on Sean’s direction he scrutinised them and saw they spun maelstroms of red and orange.

‘My…’ he said, mostly to himself.

Around them, the tiers began to fill, mostly with personnel from the workforce of the Weyr. Benden realised he was one of only a few from the Fort holding.

‘You’ve not broadcast this occasion then,’ he put to Sean, who did not reply right away. When he did, his voice was gravelly and he had to stop to clear it. Benden was not used to seeing the young man display such obvious tension and vulnerability. Perhaps to balance it, Sean’s utterance was gruff and pragmatic.

‘My Ma always said don’t count your chickens. Sorka used to tell me at school not to count me grades. I’m guessing there’s something in that.’

His gaze was fixed now at the eggs and Paul knew better then than to probe the younger man’s feelings further. It would be hypocritical to do so anyway.

Benden leaned forward in his seat, lightly lacing his fingers, the edge of his right thumb caressing the over-sensitive palm on his left hand. What would be would be.

 

*

 

Emmeline wished they could just go out onto the sands. Why prolong the wait? She and the other candidates milled at the tunnel, each person shifting their feet aimlessly. She knew from the other day that they would be spending as little time on the sands as possible for they would burn their feet if they did. She had no wish to do so and she knew the moment could not be hurried. But that wasn’t what bothered her.

No one spoke to her, or to anyone. Everyone had suddenly withdrawn into themselves, ever since the humming had started about an hour ago. She had literally been in mid-conversation with Jonathan as the news was broken to them when he clammed up.

So much for the promises everyone had made last night.

Armin’s was the only nonchalant face among them and that sickened her. Someone like that was bound to be lucky today. Someone who could either pretend he did not care to the point where it did not affect him if he got what everyone else wanted or actually genuinely didn’t care…it was the same difference really. Everyone else wanted this too much. It stood to reason he would be triumphant where others would fail. He would get it because it would hurt so much to see someone else fail.

_You’re making no sense, silly girl. Just get out there._

Her thoughts had her mother’s voice, a memory surfacing of the day of their drop to the surface of Pern. She did not remember being as unreasonable as her mother’s admonishment had suggested. She had felt her anxiety was justified. What if she was allergic to their new planet? What if they never found the right place to make their home of if someone else got there first? Someone else always did.

Emmeline smiled in spite of herself. Optimism had never been her strongest suit.

She thought the humming was intensifying and a ripple of straightening shoulders and raising heads amongst the assembled candidates indicated others had detected a change. Sorka’s appearance beside them – from which direction Emmeline could not tell – confirmed it.

‘Faranth says it is time. Follow me now. You’ll be forming a ring and then I will go to stand with Faranth. From our previous experience we believe there is no advantage to where you stand so please go where directed.’

Everyone formed a loose line behind Sorka and they filed out behind her. The cavern was well-lit, albeit mutedly, and looked much as it had the previous occasion they had visited with the addition of golden Faranth and many glowing dragon eyes above.

Their path took them all past her and Emmeline noticed a few people – Martin and Rashid among them – quailed at her intense look. Emmeline forced herself to meet her gaze as her turn came. The dragon merely tilted her head at the next person in line. No special glance. No reward.

She reassured herself that it simply did not matter whether she impressed the dragon mother or not. She’d done more than some and the difference was null. The outcome could neither have been for lack of trying not for excess of effort.

Herself was not convinced.

She found herself between two people she did not know. She looked about her and saw Coco three places to her left and Saskia a dozen or more beyond that. Jonathan was directly across from her and Joanna off a way to her right. Emmeline’s nearest eggs were a cluster of three of incremental sizes, all tilted toward each other. No one knew what each would contain.

Emmeline could not helm but steal a glance at the egg which Faranth favoured, her foreleg curved with propriety about its bulbous base. Emmeline fancied it was bigger than the others. It was set apart from the other eggs, too. Sorka had said nothing about this one and had given no special instructions…

The dragon song ceased. People tilted their heads as the sound continued to ring in their temporal memories, but it was Faranth who commanded Emmeline’s attention. She nosed the egg nearest her. A scissoring series of cracks emitted from its shell and Emmeline caught herself leaning over.

The egg exploded causing a slight cry from the young man standing next to it. Shards of shell flew in all direction and a little gold dragon – a fraction the size of her dam – creeled on the sands.

A collective gasp arose as the dragonet blinked and looked around her, settling her gaze on Faranth and tottering over to her. Faranth leaned her nose toward her young daughter and touched it. Then she stepped back, a noise between a hiss and a little hum encouraging her to leave.

The dragonet mewled in her mother’s direction and then stopped as it seemed that something else had caught her attention. She turned her head on its neck to look behind her, blinking in apparent confusion.

Sorka’s voice rang out. ‘Girls, come closer. She can’t quite see clearly I think.’

Emmeline picked up her feet and obliged, but she somehow doubted that this dragonet was hers. Surely she would have heard by now. Where was the name?

All the girls converged on the little queen, about twenty-eight and the dragon turned her body to meet them, her interest in her mother fading as minds presented themselves to merge with hers.

 _My name is Athanth_ , _Emmeline._

Emmeline’s jaw stretched into an astounded yawn. It was a voice, a definite voice without source. She touched her ears. Was it that queen? Where…?

‘Athanth…’ Emmeline spoke aloud. Saskia had heard.

‘Emmeline, do you hear something? Is that her…’ Saskia stopped, her eyes rolling. ‘Ngangth,’ she said, and turned to look behind her.

It was obvious who Ngangth was. Emmeline stared in spite of herself as the first green dragon of Pern made contact with her chosen rider. So small, barely half the size of the as yet nameless queen, maybe only mildly heavier set than a fire lizard but what a colour! Emmeline blinked as she saw the new variant, the dragon’s hide dark but so clearly hued in the colour forbidden within the standard grey stone of Pernese homes today.

The little dragon unfolded her wings and reared to meet Saskia, her eyes cyclonic through blue, yellow and green, cheeping away something mad and ecstatic in delight. Saskia dropped to the ground to wrap arms around the little dragonet, unfettered tears dripping between from Saskia’s eyes onto her dragon’s hide like sealing wax, bonding them for life.

Emmeline stared only a few seconds before looking for her own. She had not been mistaken. ‘Athanth,’ she called again, her vocal cords rasping with the emotion from the scene she’d just taken in and in desperation. ‘Ath–’

_Emmeline. I am behind you. I think. Please_

Emmeline turned. The gold. The queen. Hers.

Other girls had stepped back to let the dragon pass and there she stood now a few feet distant, eyes flecked with the worry of red but now whirling yellow and blue with relief.

_Athanth._

The Impression overwhelmed Emmeline, the nerves in her wrists and thighs and groin firing with an intensity not unlike orgasm and she found herself teetering on her feet. Emotions not her own and yet her own and also shared spilled from unknown crevices of her brain and beyond, the contact with another mind as much hers as her own a perfect paradox of both self and other. Emmeline had never felt more real, never less doubted the substance of the moment, never felt that happiness was as truly assured and yet so infinitely more fragile and thus never so precious as that rainbow gaze insisted she and everything were.

Someone came at both sides to steady her on her feet as she felt her knees buckle. The dragonet closed the distance and reared much as Ngnanth had to greet her partner.

_I love you._

Stricken mute, Emmeline caressed the golden head. She felt the supporting hands under her left arm go limp.

‘Maylath,’ whispered a male voice and the support gave way entirely. On her right, the hold slackened as well. She straightened her knees, determined not to faint herself now.

Presently a human voice said her name, ‘Emmeline?’

She glanced up to see Sorka standing in front of her, her green eyes wet and smiling. Snaking behind her was Faranth’s head, leaning in to observe her new daughter and her rider, who Sorka realised was now nosing into a bowl that Sorka held in her hands.

‘You’ll need this,,’ Sorka said, handing it to her, smiling and her tearful eyes and a tremor in her voice were mirror and echo to Emmeline’s own. Emmeline took the bowl, the cold stainless steel of the vessel feeling odd after Athanth’s supple hide.

‘We need to get you off the sands now, Emmeline,’ she said. ‘And you must feed Athanth. Come with me, I’ll show you.’

Emmeline obliged, glad for the direction offered her. She scooped a handful of meat out of the bowl and passed it to Athanth, who bolted it back and whined for more, dropping down to all fours to follow her partner as Emmeline was led by Sorka away from the place of their pairing, toward the exit that would take them to the barracks.

Emmeline noticed that the Hatching Ground was now littered with so many shards of shell now, where only moments before had been eggs. Just one left, several people crowded around it. Jonathan was among them. She stopped and Sorka seemed to understand or perhaps shared her curiosity.

‘Just make sure you feed Athanth,’ she said. Sorka did, slowly, piece at a time, mindful not to let the dragon take too many gobbets at a time. It was not easy to watch the rocking egg as well, but someone came along and replaced the bowl in her hands and that allowed her to stay long enough to witness the moment.

 _Please let it be Jonathan,_ she thought, as the egg splintered and finally released its denizen: a brown dragon.

The ten girls or so who had gathered around fell back, disappointed. It must have been a mostly gendered hatching, Emmeline reasoned as she noted the resignation on their faces. The boys looked like they might well have begun to jostle for the attention of the dragonet, who seemed to be taking some time over his decision, but for the appearance of Sean, who had vaulted over the rim of the tiered seating and was now approaching. Carenath had also dropped down to the sands.

The brown arched his neck and tilted his head back, peering at each of the young men assembled in front of him.

She glanced down at Athanth.

 _What made you choose me?_ She thought.

_Nothing. You were always mine._

Emmeline laughed in disbelief as she realised the thought had transmitted itself. And Athanth had replied. She handed the queen yet another handful of meat and then quickly looked up as she perceived movement ahead.

_Yes!_

It was Jonathan. He was on his knees as the brown approached him with the eagerness of a dog spying his long-lost master, even lying down in the sands and exposing his neck and raising up one forearm to wrap around Jonathan’s.

‘His name is Forith!’

The boys fell back, one or two even running from the scene, fleeing the ground to disguise their grief and disappointment.

Someone approached Jonathan with a bowl of meat like Emmeline’s and Jonathan wasted no time responding to his dragon’s requests.

‘Come on, Emmeline,’ Sorka said. ‘Time to go.’

Emmeline could see Sean go up to Jonathan and presumably say something similar. They all headed toward the entrance to the barracks. The distance was not great, but the dragonets were quite slow and ungainly, and Emmeline had to slow for Athanth. By the time the ground finally became cool and hard under their feet, Jonathan and Forith had caught up and they were in a room filled with little dragonets and newly Impressed men and women.

Everyone was busy with their own charges and Athanth’s demands were sufficient distraction that Emmeline could not quite make out who was with whom. Athanth devoured a third bowl and Emmeline was close to contemplating asking for a fourth when Saskia appeared beside her.

‘Well done, Emmeline. She’s beautiful.’

Emmeline grasped Saskia in a hug, which the other woman returned with genuine warmth and congratulation.

‘We’ve done it,’ Emmeline said. Then she wobbled on her feet as the little gold dragon looked up at her and sent a wave of affection toward her across their bond. She laughed again at the physical impact and felt her eyes brimming over as well.

‘I know,’ Saskia said. ‘I just keep crying, too. And there’s no tissue or handkerchiefs or anything.’

Emmeline laughed, wiping her eyes. She looked down at Athanth, who had begun to take an interest in the other dragonets in the room. She had approached Ngnangth, perhaps sensing the communication between their partners and was touching noses with the little green.

They were talking, she realised, as she perceived something like a conversation heard through a wall.

‘Hey, Emmeline,’ a deliciously accented voice at her shoulder said. She smiled and turned around to hug Coco to her.

‘Oh, you got a blue,’ she said as she beheld the little dragon’s gorgeous hide.

‘Yeah I know.’ Coco grinned in an undignified and unabashed manner – all cheeks and creased eyes – that Emmeline could not have imagined seeing yesterday. ‘His name is Truseth. I’m just completely in love right now.’

Saskia congratulated Coco, too, and then Jonathan came over with Forith, whom he was still feeding meat. He exchanged congratulations with everyone.

‘You had me going there,’ Emmeline said. ‘Thought you were going to break up a set.’

‘Nah, I was just waiting for the right dragon,’ Jonathan said, winking. Then he shook his head. ‘I was worried for a bit, though. All these eggs started breaking around me and then they just started charging all about, looking for people. A couple fell over and I went over to help them and then they went and Impressed someone else. I saw all of you Impressing and I was getting panicked. Then that idiot Armin Impressed a blue dragon and I just wanted to cry.’

‘Armin Impressed?’

‘Yeah, he’s over there,’ Jonathan said, pointing. They all looked.

‘Is it me or does he not look especially delighted?’ Emmeline asked.

Coco laughed. ‘It’s not you. Quite a few girls Impressed the blues, but there were three bronzes and six browns and they all went to the boys. I think Armin and Rashid were the only boys to get blues.’

‘Rashid Impressed? That’s great.’

‘Who got the bronzes?’

‘Martin, Yasseem and Josef.’

The conversation would have continued but Sorka and Sean’s raised voices asking for their attention quelled the chatter. They all turned to the leaders and they saw Admiral Benden standing with them. The hush got louder and everyone turned to hear.

‘Congratulations, everybody,’ Sorka said. ‘We are about as delighted as we could be and we know that you must all be buzzing. We remember that much quite well.’

Everyone laughed in agreement and then Sean began to speak as well.

‘We also know from experience you are going to need sleep. Your dragons too. From what we know, they should probably sleep for about ten hours now and we do recommend you join them. You’re going to feel strange for a while and it’s the best way to try and adjust. We’re going to get you settled and then someone will be bringing food along too. If you want to come with us in groups of four or five, we’ll avoid any wings getting fouled. We’ll also be collecting some information as we go and while we wait.’

Emmeline looked around at Saskia, Jonathan, and Coco. ‘Are we four or five?’

‘Where’s Joanna? Did anyone see?’

All of them looked around but no one could spot her. No one wanted to call her name, for it seemed crass. As groups began to depart the anteroom it became obvious that they would be four.  

‘I guess she’s gone,’ Saskia said, her voice flat.

‘You think she’ll try again?’

Emmeline didn’t like to speculate. It felt ghoulish. She imagined the three of them talking about her in the same way. Joanna would be imagining something just like this, she knew.

The speculation was cut short anyway. An older lady with shoulder length grey hair came up to their group. She had a gold fire lizard wrapped around her shoulder, Emmeline realised and she looked between the miniaturised version of her own Athanth.

‘I’m Bay,’ she introduced herself. ‘I’m here to help out and also collect a little information if I can. Is that okay?’

Each of them nodded and murmured agreement and Bay smiled with relief, removing her clipboard from its discrete position under her arm. ‘Fantastic,’ she said, removing a pencil from the top. She squinted at the sheet, leaning back to adjust the distance.

‘So, I know you, Emmeline. Alanth isn’t it? A _th_ anth? Apologies, apologies. Yes. We’re actually just weighing each dragonet if we can, as you leave the room so if you’ll come this way. How many bowls did she have? Three? Great. Pity we couldn’t weigh them on hatching but this is as good as.’

Coco giggled as the biologist murmured through her checklist, her eyes flicking from dragon to clipboard, her fire lizard mimicking her movements and her air of studious fascination.

As Athanth mounted the scale, Bay scribbled it down on the sheet, then flipped it up to check something she had underneath. She frowned, slightly, then moved along.

‘Thank you Athanth. Now, who’s next? Ah a blue, I’ve been looking forward to this.’

Coco stepped forward with Truseth, who mounted the scales sleepily. Bay noted the weight  on a new form and invited him to step down.

‘And your name is Coco Aziz? Short for anything? Socorro? Is that with a kay or…oh here, you may as well. Thank you so much.’

She briskly acquired all of their data, passing many compliments to the green and the blue for they were brand new to science. Then she moved on to the next group and bronze Polenth’s rider David approached them to lead them back to the barracks. Jonathan headed down to his room and the girls to their own.

At the door, Saskia froze as she reached to push it open. There was a line of light at the bottom of the door. She glanced back at both of them and then stepped back.

‘We could just find a new room,’ Coco suggested in a weak attempt at humour at which no one laughed, including her.

Emmeline sighed and stepped up. Pushing the door aside, she leaned in and glanced about the lit room.

‘She’s not there,’ she said. ‘And her things are gone.’

‘She left the light on,’ Saskia said, bending her neck around the door jam. ‘Must have gone in a hurry.’

‘Hm,’ Emmeline murmured as they each settled in and showed their dragonets where to go.

‘On here, Truseth,’ Coco said, indicating the low stone couch on which a coarse matting had been laid. She looked at with scepticism, but the blue seemed not to object at all, climbing on and immediately dropping to sleep.

‘Woah,’ Coco staggered slightly.

‘You alright? Ah…woah.’ Emmeline felt the same mental jolt that Coco presumably had. How to describe it? She couldn’t. But it was almost like being back to before…

As Ngangth dropped off as well, all three girls stared at each other, dumb and confounded by the sudden loss of what they could only now appreciate as being half their consciousness.

‘Can you still feel them?’ Saskia’s voice was a troubled whisper. Her eyes glazed and refocused as she tried to find the connection. Emmeline thought about it, closed her eyes.

That helped.

‘She’s there,’ she said, nodding behind her shut lids. I think I can almost see what she’s dreaming. I think I can hear it, almost.’

‘Yeah,’ said Coco, doubtfully. ‘I think we need to sleep with them. I think it’ll help.’

‘Mm,’ Emmeline agreed and Saskia, too. They all climbed into their beds.

A few minutes later, Sorka trod along the corridor and noticed the door hanging slightly ajar for their room, the light emitting from within, and the sound dragon snores as well. She reached in her hand and switched off the light.

 

*

 

The somnolence was unanimous among every newly Impressed pair, although it was not late. There was time for the meeting between Pol, Bay, Benden, herself, and Sean, to which Sorka now directed her own weary feet in the chamber off Sean and her shared quarters.

They were all seated when she arrived, with the exception of Pol, who was pouring mugs of _klah_ for everyone.

‘Sorka?’

‘Please,’ she said, sitting down. She took the mug handed to her and was about to sip when Paul stood, raising his mug.

‘To the Hatchlings,’ he said.

‘To the Hatchlings,’ the four voices echoed. They drank the beverage and winced at the weakness of its stimulating properties, appropriate for the hour, but not the occasion.

‘I should have thought to bring something a bit more fitting,’ Benden said, his tone inflected with genuine apology. ‘Just rushed off with nothing prepared when Emwith arrived, a bit like for my second son. Arrived at the delivery room with no socks and odd shoes and absolutely nothing of use.’

Sorka chuckled politely with the others, and then winced as the baby kicked her awkwardly. It didn’t hurt but she always expected it to.

‘You alright love?’ Sean asked, perceptive to her needs in a way that she credited to his Impression of Carenath. In her last pregnancy, he had barely noticed her various winces and intakes of breath.

She nodded and then jerked her head toward him meaningfully. It was time to get on with the meeting. Sean took the hint.

‘So, Pol. Bay. What have you got for us?’

‘Well not much yet,’ Pol said. ‘Not much more than what you all saw anyway. However, the number of greens is something I think we should probably discuss.’

‘Really?’ Benden said. ‘Something wrong?’

‘Not exactly,’ Bay said. ‘Near fifty percent of the clutch being female should have been anyone’s guess, really. I suppose we just didn’t really think about the implications.’

‘Implications?’

Sorka would have smiled at Benden’s naivety but for the fact her sense of humour was slightly diluted by the fact of which he was apparently oblivious, which was no slight concern.

‘You ever hold a fire lizard Benden?’

‘No, never found the time.’

‘You familiar with their breeding patterns?’

‘Ah.’

Benden nodded, absorbing the fact. Then his frown brightened.

‘It’s a good thing in the short term, right? Could solve our capacity problem at a stroke.’

Sean leaned back in his chair. ‘Sure, as long as you have the capacity to feed tens of thousands of dragons within twenty years.’

‘Surely you could just have them breed once and then…’ The admiral made a snipping gesture with his fingers.

Sean and Sorka flicked each other a glance without turning their heads. They knew no one who had Impressed a green dragon that day would consent to that. But they couldn’t be the ones to say it here.

‘Admiral, we don’t have the capacity to do that anymore. Certainly not on the scale required. We can’t even do equine surgery anymore, let alone eighteen green dragons.’

The admiral absorbed this information from Pol with a slow inhalation. His loose fist raised up to his mouth as he processed it, his eyes finding the knuckle joints and watching them undulate.

‘Did Kitti Ping not provide for it?’

‘Not that we can tell, no,’ Bay said, stroking her gold fire lizard with one idle hand, the other pushing a sheaf of papers forward on the table, which Sorka presumed was a hard copy of the programme. ‘But then, perhaps she was considering the natural attenuation of green fire lizard offspring anyway. They’re not good mothers, for all they’re excellent breeders.’

Sean found Sorka’s eyes again and this time she heard Carenath as well.

_Sean is asking if the maker woman might have changed the greens the way she did the golds. What does this mean?_

Sorka didn’t answer Carenath, knowing he’d forget the question in time. She wouldn’t, though. And Sean needn’t have asked. She was thinking the same thing. She slowly nodded at Sean and then turned to listen to Pol, who was speaking.

‘I think we’re just going to have to see what happens,’ he said. ‘Kitti Ping’s programme has proved sound so far and I think we need to trust it. I don’t recommend anything too drastic for now.’

‘Drastic?’

Pol looked at Sean, colour showing in the older man’s face, but nevertheless meeting his eyes. ‘We have to consider it Sean. We’ve already got those whers of Wind Blossom’s and that gold bred recently herself. She had ten eggs, four of which hatched. Wind Blossom’s didn’t mention it until they arrived and now insists that they’re fed and nurtured. I’d think she’s convinced herself that she planned them the way they are, but we can barely afford to keep them and they’re much less use than... well, I was actually going to ask you about this when I got your message. I’ll humour her for now but I need you to dispose of some of the next clutch between. I’m keeping my eye on Wind Blossom this time, too. Brought her into the medical unit and I’ve made sure that those whers were assigned…’

‘We were talking about green dragons, Pol.’ Sorka interrupted, not missing his attempt to distract her and Sean and show solidarity.

The colour in Pol’s face deepened. He looked down at his hands. ‘It’s something we’d have to consider.’

An image of a young Sean passing over a dead fire lizard to the zoologist and his partner surfaced to Sorka’s memory. A pragmatic lot, these scientists.

She stirred Faranth across their link, opening up their connection. The wash of love that was so automatic and reassuring was there as always.

She regretted what she did almost immediately. Not the principle, just that Faranth’s scream of anger was going to wake at least half if not the whole Weyr.

The gold fire lizard jumped _between_ with terror and Bay dropped off her chair with surprise at the sudden vacuum opening up on her shoulder and the sudden shift in weight.

‘Where…?’

A noise at the entrance to the chamber signalled Faranth’s approach. A scrabbling at the door had Pol jump up to join his partner.

‘Is that…?’

‘Yes,’ Sorka said. ‘And I think you have your answer.’

A second bellow followed as Carenath was simultaneous in his being appraised and his stout rejection of the notion that either Sean or Faranth passed to him.

Sean rose from his seat and stood beside his wife. ‘Shall we tell them there’s nothing to worry about?’

 

*

 

Benden was much preoccupied as he was flown back to the Fort in the dying light of the Hatching day. The thing about the dragonriders was that they were too aware of their own importance to Pern and not afraid to flex it. What they were unaware of was exactly how that might look to anyone else.

At least, he hoped they were. Had Sean and Sorka really been threatening Pol and Bay in that meeting chamber, only their thoughts leashing their beasts? Or had it simply been a matter of making the point that these were not beasts but sentient beings that they were talking about?

Bay had insisted the latter was the case whilst Pol had been visibly shaken by the incident. Although Pol had hastily given an affirmative to Sean that there was, indeed, nothing for the dragons to worry about, he had later voiced concerns to both his partner and Benden that he had felt bullied out of a reasonable conversation.

Whilst he was not sure he agreed with the zoologist on his definition of reasonable, on the matter of Sorka and Sean having shut down the conversation in a less than becoming manner, Benden could acknowledge that he had a point. The meeting had ended with a slammed door into Sean and Sorka’s personal chambers.

The admiral and the scientists had had to find their own escorts and Benden had had an uneasy feeling that the word of the conversation had spread by the time that he had approached the riders in the mess. Pol and Bay had balked at the door and instead had elected to ride to the mile house and spend the night there. Benden was accorded a courteous dispatch with Kira rising from her seat without hesitation and offering to take him home. But the flecks of red in her gold dragon’s eyes made Benden avoid them entirely.

Did those the dragons heeded feel superior to normal folk? Benden wondered this as he climbed into bed that night and moulded the thought many times in different forms as his attempts to find the ever-elusive comfort proved more challenging than his unsprung mattress normally made for.

He thought back on the Hatching, particularly that moment the queen dragonet had Impressed her partner. He had been watching that young woman, Joanna, who he remembered from the first Hatching, for he had been interested to see if she would be lucky this time. She had watched that Impression with resignation, he had noticed, but with each subsequent Impression around her, her shoulders had slumped, and her expression had turned to embarrassment. She had fled the ground as if she could not bear to be around them.

Joanna had left the Weyr on horseback, he knew, not long afterward and was presumably heading back to the Fort now. Perhaps she had already arrived. Benden knew others had stayed but he doubted that Joanna would return to the Weyr and he had a feeling he knew why.

Benden had never felt inferior around the dragonriders. He had spoken to Sean and Sorka as colleagues and equals. Today was the first time it had occurred to him that they were not.

Dragonriders were a breed apart.

How could a young woman like Joanna, twice overlooked by the dragons now, view those other young men and women as her friends and colleagues when they were so different from her, when they had abilities that she had not, when they had been chosen by those she had not. She would never be at ease among them.

Benden wondered if he would be again after today.

He got up and pushed open the shutter to stare out at the Weyr up the mountainside, illuminated by moon and starlight and casting a dim halo from its inner lighting. If the Holding was a fort, the Weyr was a fortress, more heavily fortified and, more importantly, independent of what went on below in the human dwellings it protected.

If the dragonriders ever turned against those they protected…

The chill the night air sent through his torso met the one the stone floor sent up through his feet. Benden closed the shutter and climbed back into bed, trying to dispel both under several layers of down and synthetic covering, along with the cold thought in his head.

Fatigue claimed his consciousness rather than rest and he was too easily roused the following morning by the buzz of his comm unit.

‘Hello?’

It was Joel. ‘Benden, bad news. Another sled’s down.’

 

 

  

 

 

 


End file.
